doornail

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door·nail

(dôr′nāl′)

A large-headed nail.

Idiom:

dead as a doornail

Undoubtedly dead.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

doornail

(ˈdɔːˌneɪl)

(as) dead as a doornail dead beyond any doubt

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

door•nail

(ˈdɔrˌneɪl, ˈdoʊr-)

n.

a large-headed nail.

Idioms:

dead as a doornail, unquestionably dead.

[1300–50]

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Noun

doornail - a nail with a large head; formerly used to decorate doors

nail - a thin pointed piece of metal that is hammered into materials as a fastener

Translations

doornail

[ˈdɔːˌneɪl] n as dead as a doornail → morto/a stecchito/a

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References in periodicals archive ?

939) and more common meaning of "not alive." The association became clinched in our language, and many of us first learned this simile in the opening of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, in which Scrooge himself cogitates about the deadness of doornails:

Kickshaws

WHAT do balloons, parrots, dogs, posts, doornails, lords and frogs have in common?

Am I as mad as a balloon or as sick as a parrot?

For Cronin, "the Great Myles" could never free himself from the provincialism of Dublin life (Dead as Doornails 112).